The changing face of the Earth

Geomorphology is the study of the Earth’s landforms and the processes that shape them. In the 53 years since the British Society for Geomorphology was founded, both the methods available to researchers and our understanding of the Earth’s surface have changed fundamentally. You need to know about particular geomorphological themes such as rivers, coasts or glacial landforms for geography A-level. Here Professor Ken Gregory puts your A-level studies in context

Ken Gregory

Geomorphology means the study of the shape or form of the Earth’s surface. The term was first used in Germany in 1858. Its origins were in geology, and one of the first geographers to use the science was William Morris Davis (1850–1934). He proposed a cycle of erosion for river valleys, suggesting that they evolved through stages of youth, maturity and old age. Davis also conceived other cycles including the arid, coastal and glacial cycles, and proposed that any landscape was a function of structure, process and time. His ideas dominated geomorphology for the first half of the twentieth century, and led to much debate.

At first geomorphology was part of geographical and geological studies. It became identified as a separate science when geomorphological societies were created. The first was in Switzerland in 1946. The British Geomorphological Research Group (BGRG) was formed in 1960, becoming the British Society for Geomorphology (BSG) in 2006.